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Her phone rang. She hesitated to check it, fearful it would be Rick, calling from a different phone. But she made herself do it. The unfamiliar number with onlyBlackrock Fallsas a caller ID gave her pause, but she answered it anyway. “Hello.”

“Lyric, this is Officer Bowers. I’m calling from the station. I was wondering if you could come down and give your statement about what happened last night. Also, Tim would like to speak to you. If you’re up to it.”

She didn’t much care what that abusive asshole had to say.

“I’m on my way.”

Her mom raised a brow and frowned. “What?”

Lyric hung up. “The cops need me to come down and make a statement.”

Her mom relaxed. “I’ll drive you. After you finish your food.”

Lyric took a few minutes to eat as much as she could, but in the end only managed to make it through half the plate.

Her mind was on last night and thinking about what Tim could possibly want to say to her. She’d find out soon enough.

Chapter Twenty-Six

Viper arrived at the Blackrock Falls police station a few minutes earlier, asking for an update on the case, which led to him also having to inform the lieutenant that he was FBI and working an undercover case.

“Why the hell weren’t we informed that you’re working in our jurisdiction?”

Viper had ignored that question the last time the lieutenant asked it. “Need-to-know. And I’m not here to talk about my case, but the two you’re working.”

“I heard about the FBI making an arrest recently in Willow Fork.”

He ignored that, too. “Lyric will be here shortly, so let’s talk about what you know about her case.”

“You still haven’t said what your involvement in it is.”

“I’m interested in what happened to her.” He hadn’t been there to keep this from happening in the first place, and he couldn’t put Rick in his place and let him know Lyric was his, so he was left with doing this the roundabout way. No matter what, he was going to make sure she was safe.

“Why? Is she connected to the case you’re working?”

“As I said before, I was never here, you know nothing about me, and you certainly don’t know about any connection between me and her.” He stared down the lieutenant until he got the nod of acceptance he wanted. “Look, I know it sucks that I’m asking you for information on these cases and giving you nothing in return. My case is sensitive. The wrong person hears the wrong thing and it’s my ass.” It could be his very life. “I’m sure it’s not hard for you to link me to the MC, but other than that, I can’t tell you my focus on the case.”

The lieutenant settled into the conversation with less hostility and more cooperation. “We’ve been watching the MC for a long time. There’s never been any red flags that suggested guns or drugs or anything illegal going on there besides some drunk driving and minor assaults—petty stuff. Certainly nothing that warranted the FBI.”

Viper held his tongue.

The lieutenant sighed. “Okay. Fine. You’ve seen the video of the car hitting Lyric. The car was stolen from the local-diner parking lot after the owner left her purse open on the counter and someone snagged the keys right out of it.”

“That was brazen.” The premeditation worried Viper.

“Yes, it was. The diner had approximately thirty people in it at the time. Some paid cash and weren’t regulars that the staff could identify, so it’s hard to say who took the keys. We’re still talking to people we identified as being there at the time the car was stolen. No one recognized Rick’s picture so far.”

That didn’t mean he wasn’t there. “So it looks like no one saw anything,” Viper guessed.

“So far, but we’ll keep working the case. We found the car but it had been wiped down and there was nothing left in the vehicle that didn’t belong to the owner.”

Viper couldn’t help but wish for something, one small piece of evidence to nail the bastard who’d hit his girlfriend. “What about Rick Rowe? Have you found him yet?”

“He picked up his belongings from the cabin at the Wilde Wind Ranch without being seen and hasn’t returned. We don’t know where he’s staying now or if he flew home.”

Viper had information the lieutenant didn’t. “He didn’t fly anywhere. At least, we didn’t find him listed on any outgoing flights in the past forty-eight hours.” Viper had used his resources to check that out, because if it wasn’t Rick, he had to assume it was someone linked to his case, who knew about him and Lyric. Right now, his instincts told him this was Rick.

The lieutenant sighed. “Thanks for checking that out.”